The poor are always gettin’ screwed over by the rich. Always have, always will.
— Private King, in the movie ‘Platoon’.
The Governor received information about the location where a civilian militia, hostile to the government, was stockpiling military-grade firearms and ammunition. So he dispatched a tactical team to seize the stockpile.
En route to the stockpile, the tactical team encountered the armed militia. A series of firefights ensued between the tactical team and the militia – which culminated in a rout of the tactical team.
The date was April 19…
…1775.
The tactical team were British regular soldiers acting under authority of the lawfully constituted government.
How regulated those militia were depends on which group you mean. Some had a clear command structure, sanctioned by the provisional Massachusetts government, with regulations. But others were merely groups of armed men who grabbed their rifles and responded to the call to arms.
Just four months earlier, Massachusetts had been declared in rebellion by the British Attorney General, the Secretary for Colonial Affairs Lord Dartmouth, and King George III.
The King didn’t recognize the legal existence of the provisional government, so by definition none of the militia were regulated.
That firefight between the soldiers, and civilian militia armed with military-style firearms, was the opening salvo of the American Revolution. To this day no one knows for sure who fired first.
Next Sunday, April 19, 2025, is the 250th anniversary of the event that, 16 years later, would inspire the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
There are those who would have you believe that the only “people” who have the right to “keep and bear arms” are members of a “well regulated militia”. Those who believe that interpretation of the Second Amendment misunderstand one of its essential principles.
In 2008, the United States Supreme Court made it clear that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is not limited to members of a militia.
In a exhaustively historical and grammatically researched explanation, the Court declared that the reference to a militia in the Second Amendment was merely a “preparatory phrase” that does not limit the “operative phrase” relating to an individual right to own firearms – independent of membership in a militia.
Two years later, the Court said it again. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/#tab-opinion-1963369 And then again in 2022, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
This was not a changed interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court had never addressed that specific issue in the 219 years since the Bill of Rights was adopted.
The issue never had to be decided before a gun-control lobby emerged from the social upheaval of the 1960s.
From a book by Robert J. Cottrol and Brannon P. Denning:
Before the advent of the gun-control movement of the 1960s… the idea that the right of American citizens included a right to be armed, even armed against a potentially tyrannical government, had been part of the common culture and, indeed, part of the common curriculum taught in the nation’s schools… The gun-control movement in the 1960s-1980s captured the allegiances of the nations elites.
Which brings us to another governor: Jared Polis of Colorado.
According to Governor Polis, in the name of “safety”, for me to purchase certain firearms in Colorado I must first undergo “firearm safety training” which won’t be cost-free. What is that training going to teach me that I don’t already know?
My first firearm safety training was 70 years ago as a child, when my father taught me safe handling of the various pistols and rifles hanging on our wall at home. Two of them were semi-automatic with detachable magazines – one, a .45 caliber Model 1911 pistol, and another, an M1 carbine. Both were clearly military weapons, since they were the ones he had carried through Europe in WWII.
The first formal firearms training I received was in the military — which included both basic and advance use of full-auto weapons. Then, during my prosecutorial career, I received regular law enforcement firearms training.
So what exactly is a firearms safety course going to accomplish in my case, other than costing me money? Which I suggest is the true purpose of the new statute.
Here is that statute: . Section 2 creates a new provision in Title 18 of the current Colorado Revised Statues (section 18-12-116 (5)(a)1) that mandates:
A BASIC FIREARMS SAFETY COURSE AND AN EXTENDED FIREARMS SAFETY COURSE MUST BE TAUGHT BY AN INSTRUCTOR VERIFIED BY A SHERIFF AS A FIREARMS INSTRUCTOR PURSUANT TO SECTION 18-12-202.7.
The new statute doesn’t specify the curriculum of either the basic or extended courses.
So to find out the subject content of the safety course, I referred to the statute cited in the new statute. Read the entire Title 18 here.
To save you trudging through the whole thing, I’ll recite the pertinent part. Section 18-12-202.7 reads,
(2) To become a verified instructor, an applicant must:
…
(b) Be certified as a firearms instructor by one of the following entities that has instructors certified by a nationally recognized organization that customarily offers firearms training:
Neither statute says anything whatsoever about what will be taught in the required courses other than “firearms safety”. Nor does the law make any provision for exemption of those with military and/or law enforcement firearms training.
Which begs the obvious question: Why should anyone with training like mine need to take the safety course? Well… reading elsewhere in the statutes provides a possible answer.
Both Sections 12-12-116, and 18-12-202, make reference to paying fees. One could speculate the whole purpose of the new statute is to generate revenue for the State.
One could also speculate the fee requirements make it difficult for anyone without the resources to afford the fees — such as those with low incomes. Lower income individuals are more likely to have military experience than the affluent — and there is no exemption from the required safety training for those with service experience.
Since the new law doesn’t make it illegal to own those restricted firearms, the affluent can simply go to another state and purchase them, without the time and expense of the firearms safety course. An option not as readily available to the less affluent.
Is this simply elitist class privilege in action? The wealthy can arm themselves, while the lower classes are inhibited from doing so? Just sayin’.
So here in the semi-quincentennial year since common Americans armed themselves against the tyranny of the ruling elites, a new Colorado law puts financial roadblocks in the way of the commoner’s right to do so.